


Invisible Wall

by EleenaDume



Series: Spop fics! [4]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Bow Is a Good Friend (She-Ra), Cuddling, F/M, Gen, Glimbow Centric, Glimbow-centric, Glimmer Needs a Hug (She-Ra), Glimmer is stressed and hurting and doesn’t know how to handle it, Hurt/Comfort, Post ‘Boys Night Out’, Pre-Relationship, Prompt:cuddling, Touch, Tumblr: Glimbow Week, but really more hurt than comfort, prompt:touch, she also misses her mom a whole lot, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EleenaDume/pseuds/EleenaDume
Summary: After the events of “Boys’ Night Out”, Glimmer can’t sleep and decides to try and sleep next to Bow... but he’s still upset, and even when he allows her to stay, it’s like there is this invisible wall between them that she can't reach through.How was it possible to feel this lonely in someone‘s arms?For the Glimbow week prompt cuddling/touch!
Relationships: Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: Spop fics! [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1791085
Comments: 5
Kudos: 35
Collections: Glimbow Week 2020





	Invisible Wall

It was the middle of the night when Glimmer climbed into the bunk of the ship where Bow had laid down to sleep. It was still a couple more hours until they’d reach Bright Moon, so they had to spend the night on the ship.

Glimmer hadn’t fought as badly with Bow as she and Adora had, but there was still a lot of frustration and sadness on Bow’s side that the young Queen didn’t miss. Or maybe they had fought just as badly as Glimmer and Adora... just differently.

The Queen of Bright Moon half hoped that Bow would already be asleep when she laid down next to him and wrapped him in her arms.

She hoped in vain. He immediately stirred in her arms.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

The words hung in the air for a while, neither of them knowing what else to say. 

Bow wanted to speak up again... to tell Glimmer that she had to talk things out with Adora before their relationship got even worse and would eventually fall apart completely... but he remained silent, both knowing that nothing he could say right now would have reached her and not wanting to fight with his best friend again, especially not in the middle of the night. 

Fighting with friends sucked, and fighting with Glimmer of all people was even worse.

There had been a time in their childhood where neither of them had even known it was possible to fight like this. 

Back then, when they had still been too small to understand the war and the legacy that would one day be Glimmer‘s to carry, they’d felt like everything was right in the world as long as they just had each other.

It had been long afternoons of playing outside in the gardens, consoling Glimmer after she had another fight with her mother, and sleepovers where they’d built pillow forts and stayed up past their bedtime in secret, so they could watch the sunset together. They‘d worn matching outfits to formal events and had ice cream and lemonade afterwards.

The memory almost brought the taste back, but their present made the memory turn bitter in his mouth.

Back then, they’d thought the other was perfect and could never make a mistake... that they’d never have a real fight, ever. 

People had told them that friends sometimes fought, and sometimes these fights were bad, and that that was okay because if the friendship was strong enough, they’d find their way back to each other. 

Back then, Glimmer and Bow had just laughed it off. Just because it happened to other people didn’t mean it would happen to them, right? Nobody had a friendship as strong as theirs, and nothing could ever break them apart... 

It was a cruel thing to be proven wrong about.

“Can’t sleep, huh?” Bow finally broke the silence between them.

Glimmer shook her head. She hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a while now. 

Not since Salineas fell. 

Maybe not since her mom‘s death.

Just thinking about that made her tear up again. She’d thought her mother was invincible for so long... and then she was gone in the blink of an eye, just like that. And Glimmer had never even gotten to apologize for their stupid fight.

“Can... can I stay here?” she asked hesitantly.

The few seconds that passed while she was waiting for an answer made her anxious. She needed him to say yes. Today more than ever before.

Her best friend gave her a small smile.

“Of course. Always.”

He didn’t sound as thrilled as he usually would have. 

It had been a long day, and Adora’s and Glimmer’s constant fighting had slowly exhausted even the last of Bow’s seemingly never-ending positivity and patience. It hurt watching them fight.

Glimmer didn’t miss the tone of his voice, and how different it sounded from usually.

“It’s okay, I can leave if-”

Bow shook his head.

“It’s fine, really. You can stay. But today’s been... a lot. I’m just... tired.”

He sighed.

It was more than a physical tiredness from fighting the Horde soldiers earlier – he’d gotten used to that over the years, after all. 

It was mostly an emotional tiredness. He felt too numb from fighting with his friends to be happy, especially since they hadn’t even made up afterwards. He could see that Glimmer and Adora were drifting further and further apart, and sooner or later, even he wouldn’t be able to salvage their friendship anymore. 

Knowing that broke him. Knowing that there was nothing he could do about it broke him even more. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to intervene before, but nothing actually got through to them, and when the two people that were fighting were unwilling to communicate at all, there was little a third party could do. 

Having a front row seat to your best friends having one falling out after another as their friendship slowly dissolved completely was one of the worst things imaginable.

And the same way Bow missed his childhood with Glimmer when things had still been easy, before the hard reality of life had caught up to them... he missed the early days after they’d met Adora. Sure, they hadn’t been anywhere as peaceful as the days of his childhood, but when he thought about how they’d still had time to introduce Adora to things like parties and ice cream back then... he missed those small moments of peace in the seemingly never-ending war that got worse by the day. He missed the days after they’d just formed the Best Friend Squad. He missed the days when they had been happy together – when they hadn’t been fighting constantly.

“Okay. I... I’m sorry.”

Glimmer didn’t know what else to say. She waited for a reply she never got, and then she stayed quiet. 

A part of her wanted to ask if they could turn around, so she could be the little spoon, but she didn’t want to push her luck. 

Being the big spoon was nice sometimes, but after everything that had happened today, she would have preferred to be the little one. She wanted him to hold her like he always had when she’d been scared back when they were little... his strong arms around her to remind her that he was there to protect her, that he wanted to be there for her and that he’d never let her go. That nothing, no matter how strong or terrifying it was, could ever separate them.

...but she couldn’t have that. Not today.

She was lucky enough that he let her stay at all. 

Holding him made her feel better, but not as much as it should have. Not as much as she’d have needed it to.

Not as much as it usually did.

Here she was, holding her best friend, feeling the familiar shape of his muscular body against hers, and she still felt like crying.

There was a distance between them that hadn’t been there before – an invisible wall that she couldn’t break down no matter how hard she tried. 

No matter how tight she hugged him, how much she tried to hold onto him... a part of her felt like she wasn’t touching him at all, not really.

Instead of the nice fluttering she usually felt in her chest when she was holding him, she just felt her heart ache.

_ ‘You’re so close to me, but I feel like we’ve never been further away from each other.’ _

She didn’t fight with Bow often. He didn’t get mad often in general, and it was even rarer for him to get mad at her. But when they  _did_ fight, she always felt like she suddenly lacked the ability to breathe.

What if her prom fear ended up coming true, after all? What if one day, they’d have a fight so bad that they couldn’t make up again afterwards, and...

Bow interrupted her thoughts by shifting in her arms again.

“Glimmer, I love you, but you’re squeezing me to death!”

She immediately loosened her grip on him.

“Sorry! Sorry... I’m just... tense.”

“Yeah. I... realized that much.” Despite being sad and disappointed and angry at the situation, Bow was still really worried about his best friends. Glimmer had a lot of pressure on her since she was Queen – and she still hadn’t been able to cope with the death of her mother properly, which wasn’t surprising, because there hadn’t really been any time left for her to grieve with how much worse the war was getting every day –, and Adora kept pushing herself further and further over the edge as well. It was hard for Bow to watch. He sighed in resignation. “I hate that you and Adora just wont stop fighting. I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Glimmer nodded. She wanted that, too – she hated fighting with Adora almost as much as she hated fighting with Bow, and she knew she’d gone too far earlier... but Adora wasn’t ready to hear her apology, and maybe Glimmer didn’t have the strength to pull through with it even if she had been.

“I just... want things to go back to normal.” Glimmer was scared. Scared of losing Bow or Adora like she’d lost her mom... after a fight, with no possibility to apologize and make up for her mistakes afterwards. But she’d not been able to control what came out of her mouth lately. She was stressed and tired and grieving and everything was falling apart just  _too much. _ Glimmer started sobbing. “I miss mom so much.”

“I know.” Bow’s voice and gaze softened. “We all do.” He really, really wished Glimmer had been given at least a couple of days to process everything. To be able to grieve her mother properly. But she hadn’t, and she couldn’t, and it was tearing her apart... and he couldn’t help her, and that was tearing him apart. “Hey Glim?”

“Hm?”

“We can... turn around, if you want. You want to be held tonight, don’t you?”

It really shouldn’t have been surprising to her anymore just how well her best friend knew her... that sometimes, even the slightest shift of tone was enough to tell him what was going on, even if it remained unspoken.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to. I know you’re still mad at me.”

Bow didn’t answer. He just turned around and pulled Glimmer into his arms, stroking her hair softly as she sobbed into his chest.

Maybe he was still mad. Maybe he was just frustrated, or disappointed, or both. But that didn’t mean he’d let her suffer alone.

“We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We should try to get some sleep.”

“...okay.” But even now, Glimmer couldn’t find peace. Even with her head comfortably on his chest, with his warm arms wrapped around her that made her feel safe, Glimmer didn’t feel at peace. The invisible wall between them was still there, and she felt it as real as if it was something she could actually touch. How was it possible to feel this lonely in someone's arms? _‘What if we’ll never go back to normal?’_

But she didn’t say anything out loud. Instead, she just stayed in his arms, touching him and still never quite reaching him.

It was perhaps the most terrifying feeling in the world. 

The feeling of imminent change.

And after what felt like an eternity, they both finally fell asleep... so close, yet so far apart.

They weren’t aware of it yet, but the end of their friendship as they’d known it was fast approaching, and once that line was crossed, there would be no going back. 

Their lives and their bond were about to change forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, feedback would be much appreciated!


End file.
